Forest sinks
Australia's forests provide essential habitat and protect soil and water resources, and forest industries make important contributions to regional communities and the economy. Forests are also important for reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
Many Australian forests and other natural resource systems are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Climate change impacts will add to existing stresses, such as salinity and competing demands for water, on these natural resource systems.
The Australian Government is working with forest growers and other natural resource managers to enhance the role of forest sinks in Australia and develop responses to the impacts of climate change.
What are forest sinks?
Limiting the loss of native vegetation and increasing forest sinks through plantations and revegetation provide important contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.
Trees and other plants take up (sequester) carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, through the process of photosynthesis. This decreases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and helps reduce the greenhouse effect. Trees use the sequestered carbon to grow leaves, stems, bark and roots. The amount of carbon in forest soils can also increase over time. While the forest is actively growing and sequestering carbon, the system is termed a carbon sink.
The rate at which forests sequester carbon is influenced by site productivity characteristics such as climate, topography and soils, as well as tree characteristics and management actions. Following land clearing, timber harvesting, bushfire or disease, carbon is released back into the atmosphere through burning or decay.
Protecting existing forests and woodlands and establishing new ones will help Australia limit greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, these activities can help manage major natural resource issues such as land degradation, salinity, water quality and biodiversity.
Benefits of forest sinks
Forest sinks can provide a practical contribution to efforts on farms and at the national level to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, while potentially contributing to Australia's other environmental and economic goals. Well planned actions can also provide natural resource management benefits including salinity mitigation, enhanced biodiversity, and improved water or soil quality. Forest sinks also offer the opportunity for land managers to gain benefits from participating in emissions offset initiatives. For land managers, growing trees and sustaining tree growth on farms can:
- reduce the total greenhouse emissions associated with all activities on the farm;
- provide an added revenue stream from marketing of forestry products; or
- enable participation in emerging schemes for marketing of carbon sinks as offsets for greenhouse emissions from industrial and other sources.
In addition, many businesses are looking for a range of options for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. A company may choose to invest in forest sinks for a number of reasons:
- participating in a government programme that recognises forest sink offsets, e.g. Greenhouse Challenge Plus;
- meeting a mandated requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
- making beneficial use of existing land, expertise or local partnerships;
- achieving other environmental benefits, e.g. windbreaks, water quality protection and improved visual amenity;
- implementing corporate environmental strategies that include actions to establish vegetation; and/or
- contributing to community environmental improvement programmes.
Many forests, including environmental plantings and commercial plantations, have the potential to deliver multiple environmental, social and economic benefits. The establishment of forest sinks can contribute to natural resource management objectives and may attract public and private investment.
Australian Government programmes that aim to encourage the establishment of forest sinks include:
These programmes encourage business and industry to offset their greenhouse gas emissions through a range of abatement activities, including forest sinks.
Establishing forest sinks
Through the Greenhouse Action in Regional Australia programme, the Australian Government has developed the Planning Forest Sink Projects series of reports to provide information and guidance to those stakeholders interested in engaging in forest sink activity:
- Planning Forest Sink Projects - A Guide to Forest Sink Planning, Management and Carbon Accounting
This Guide provides information on planning, establishing and managing a forest for carbon sequestration benefits, and outlines approaches for estimating and reporting carbon sequestration. - Planning Forest Sink Projects - A Guide to Legal, Taxation and Contractual Issues
This Guide explains the legal issues that should be dealt with in agreements to sell carbon sequestration, and describes the different approaches State governments have taken in defining the right to own sequestered carbon. Taxation issues that apply to the purchase and sale of sequestered carbon are also discussed. - Planning Forest Sink Projects - A Guide to Carbon Pooling and Investment Structures
This Guide seeks to provide the information necessary for organisations and individuals to make informed decisions about carbon pooling options, and includes a review of investment vehicles that can facilitate and manage pooling activities.
The Australian Government has also released a series of booklets introducing the important issues that prospective forest sink growers and investors should be aware of:
- Investing in trees as greenhouse sinks - An overview for industry
- Growing trees as greenhouse sinks - An overview for landholders
- Growing trees as greenhouse sinks - An overview for local government
These booklets cover issues such as:
- how trees can contribute to greenhouse abatement
- forest sink activities that will contribute to Australia's greenhouse gas abatement effort
- emission offsets and carbon markets
- forest sink opportunities available to industry
- issues to consider before investing in forest sinks
- the quantities of carbon that trees in different parts of Australia can store
- forest sink case studies.
In partnership with regional natural resource management and forestry organisations, the Australian Government has delivered a series of regional workshops across all states to introduce stakeholders to the issues associated with establishing forest sinks.
Carbon accounting
Carbon accounting is the process of estimating the carbon sequestered and emitted in a forest system, both prior to and during the life of the project. Estimating carbon sequestration in forest sink projects is important for planning and reporting purposes, and for claiming emissions offsets.
The national greenhouse gas account for forest sinks and other land-based activities is constructed through the National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS), which provides a complete accounting and forecasting capability for human-induced sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions. In general terms, the national accounts for forest activities are developed through identifying spatial and temporal changes in forest cover, assessing land use and management practice, and then estimating the associated changes in carbon stocks.
The Australian Government has developed the National Carbon Accounting Toolbox to enable users to estimate carbon accounts for forest sinks. The Toolbox provides a set of tools for tracking carbon stock changes in forests. It provides access to the Full Carbon Accounting Model, which is used by NCAS to construct Australia's national greenhouse gas account for land-based activities. Using the Toolbox therefore ensures project level carbon accounts for forest sinks are determined on a similar basis to Australia's official continental-scale reporting of carbon sequestration in forest sinks.
